Burn Up Scramble Vol-1: Angels Attack Assailants! (2004)
Animation Production: AIC/Burn Up Scramble Committee
Released by: Geneon Entertainment
Running Time: 100 Minutes
Official Website: Burn Up Scramble
By Jeffrey Couto

Introduction

The Burn Up franchise has been around for a number of years now, but it wasn’t until Burn Up Scramble that I had my first exposure to it. Apparently from what I’ve read they all seem to follow a similar premise and Burn Up Scramble just happens to be the latest take on the series’ concept, which seems to always revolve around the an elite squad of women that are called upon whenever dangerous situations arise.

Despite my unfamiliarity with the franchise I did find myself enjoying this show for what it was and was surprised by its’ overall quality given a concept that basically boils down to what is often referred to in anime as a girls with gun series.

Story

"In the near future of Tokyo, the Metropolitan Police Department forms a secret unit called "WARRIORS" to solve the many heinous crimes. The members that make up this crime fighting team are: Rio, a police officer specializing in any form of martial arts; Maya, an eagle-eyed sniper; and Lilica, a prisoner with supernatural powers." Geneon's Burn Up Scramble Webpage

Review

This first volume in Geneon’s release of Burn Up Scramble contains the first four episodes in the series, which include:

Episode 1: Warriors Strike at Dawn!
Whenever there’s a situation that the regular police department can’t handle a special group known only as “Warriors” is deployed to quickly and efficiently solve the problem with minimal public exposure. This group is currently made up of two women, Rio and Maya.

Rio is a type-A personality who makes sure everyone knows where she stands. She is a strong believer in astrology and often arranges her life in accordance to her horoscope, to the point of redoing her entire apartment and wardrobe in whatever color happens to be her lucky one that month. As a Warrior her role is to be the hands-on member of the team who oftens tackles problems with hand to hand combat. Maya is more reclusive, often keeping her thoughts to herself. She is the team’s firearms expert and usually backs up Rio with sniper guns.

In this episode they are called on to deal with a biker gang that is intent on ruling the roads! Will they be able to do what an entire police department has not manage to pull off!?

Episode 2: Defeat the Mobile-Robber Madgunder!
A thief it out in the streets of Japan with a customized truck capable of breaking and stealing an ATM in mere seconds! It’s up to the Warriors to investigate and stop this criminal before any more money is stolen!

Episode 3: Warriors, Five Seconds’Til Detonation!
A new warrior joins the team! Lilica Evett has extraordinary physic abilities that make it possible to help the team pinpoint when events will happen or even know everything about a person by merely touching them. She arrives in the nick of time as the the Warriors must take care of an explosive device that has been planted at a tourist location and they only have a few hours until it explodes! Will the newest addition to the team help save the day!?

Episode 4: Crash! Seventy Thousand Kilometers in Tokyo!
A technologically advanced and extremely agile peeping tom is on the loose! When the police department can’t do anything to stop him the Warriors are recruited to hunt him down, but will they be able to find him!?

As with Ikkitousen, which I just recently watched, when I saw the box art and opening for Burn Up Scramble I thought this was going to be nothing more than an excuse for fan service scenes, but it turned out that while there are some slight fan service scenes, this isn’t really the focus of the series. The show is more about tough crimes that need to be solved, comedy, and cool action scenes. Don’t know about you, but that usually sounds like a formula for success to me and in this case it pulls it of nicely.

Basically what you have with this first volume of the series story-wise in an introduction to this new universe and the cast of characters we’ll be joining in each episode’s adventure. The first two episodes are an introduction to Rio, with most of the focus being put on her and her obsessions with horoscopes, love, and travel. Maya is not really explored as much, so in a way we don’t get to know her well in these episodes. Lilica, like Maya, enjoys a brief introduction, but is then cast aside as Rio takes more of the center stage alongside the crime of that episode.

Each episode in this DVD is more or less a self-contained story with no real connection between stories. The plot for each one typically focuses on a single criminal or group that the Warriors have to stop during the course of the episode. By the time episode four rolls by we already have an idea on what expect plot-wise, but because of the different nature and methods used in each crime the writers do manage to keep us in our toes and guessing on what the next crime might be.

On the character end we have a nice mix in the cast, with the two leading protagonists in particular (Rio and Maya) playing really well off each other. The supporting members of the cast at this point in the series are still mostly in the background with the possible exception of the Police Head Chief Naruo, who’s desperately interested in getting a date with Rio. He has a good presence in each episode and mostly adds a nice comedic touch by being the sole love interest as of these point in Burn Up Scramble.

On the production end of the equation this show is certainly up there, which is no surprise given that it was produced in 2004. The animation quality is as high quality as could be expected with a very nice frame rate and a varied color palette that fluctuates between bright pastel colors and dark, almost menacing ones for the night scenes. Special effects abound and are sprinkled throughout in a reasonable fashion. Most consist of simple environmental and weapons visual effects.

The music soundtrack was suitable for what the show’s premise is featuring a healthy mix of BGM tunes and solid opening & closing theme songs. The voice acting was adequate although it didn’t really do much to stand out from other shows.

The DVD package is very well together in typical Geneon fashion. The exterior of the DVD case ports some nice artwork of the main cast in their daytime police uniforms while the back cover features the trio in their Warrior uniforms (color coded of course) alongside content descriptions and an extras list. Speaking of the cover I should mention that the cover featured here is reversible.

The DVD itself features a number of extras that include clean copies of the opening and closing themes for Burn up Scramble. A line art gallery and previews for other domestic releases from Geneon. In terms of video/audio quality there are no complaints from this end. The audio is encoded in Dolby Digital 2.0 and comes across with no issues in both tracks. The video for the most came across very clean and sharply.

Final Thoughts

Burn up Scramble volume 1 was a very fun DVD to watch, more than I would have imagined judging from the DVD cover. This one is definitely recommended for all fans of action-oriented anime shows. Featuring a nice mix of comedy, interesting characters and neat action scenes it really is one of those releases that you should try out.

Good stuff!

Jeffrey Couto